Editorial: Paving the way for higher tolls

Thursday

Jun 21, 2007 at 12:01 AMJun 21, 2007 at 9:14 PM

Last fall, the Mass. Turnpike Authority Board was talking about how they could remove tolls. Now they are planning to invest in technology to collect more of them. That's a turn of the tide that will prove costly to those who depend on the Pike.

Last fall, the Mass. Turnpike Authority Board was talking about how they could remove tolls. Now they are planning to invest in technology to collect more of them. That's a turn of the tide that will prove costly to those who depend on the Pike.

The board this week moved to embrace the next generation of tolling technology: equipment that can take money out of your account without you having to slow down even to the FastLane's posted 15 mph and that can be programmed to raise and lower tolls during different times of day.

As if to emphasize that the Turnpike Authority's flirtation with toll-elimination scenarios last year was ancient history, state Secretary of Transportation Bernard Cohen, who takes over next month as Pike Authority chairman, noted that "what this says is we better be prepared to collect tolls on the Turnpike for a while."

If there was any regret in his voice, we didn't hear it. If there are plans to use the new technology to reduce costs - like $50,000-a-year toll-takers - so as to reduce tolls, it didn't come through in published reports. Indeed, the implication is clear that the Pike is looking for ways to increase toll collections, not reduce them.

They will do this through an insidious transportation fad known as "congestion pricing," designed to make drivers stuck in rush-hour traffic pay with their wallets as well as their time.

Congestion pricing combines liberal nanny-state tendencies - the government will tell you when you should or shouldn't drive - with conservatives' love of economic incentives. The pretext is that it will clear the roads by encouraging people to use the Pike during off-peak times.

Maybe some will, but others have no choice: the student who has to make it to an 8:30 class, the wage worker who must punch a timeclock, the person meeting a visiting relative at the airport, the cabdriver, construction worker, delivery driver. These people won't be incentivized by congestion pricing, they will be punished by it.

There's nothing progressive about tolls, but congestion pricing is even harder on the poor. It is designed to force riders for whom a few bucks is a big deal onto Rte. 9 and other non-tolled roads. That's not reducing congestion, it's just relocating it.

Congestion already takes a toll on drivers' time, and those who can avoid rush-hour traffic already have ample incentive to do so. While there will likely be talk about keeping tolls "revenue neutral" by reducing tolls during off-peak hours, longtime toll-payers should be justly skeptical. With the state facing a $19 billion transportation spending shortfall, the leadership of the Turnpike Authority isn't even pretending to be interested in saving money for toll-payers. They are interested in taking more.